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mHealth services start to leverage apps to become commercially successful

[By Markus Pohl]

The market for mHealth services has now entered the commercialization phase and will reach $ 26 billion globally by 2017 says the new “Global Mobile Health Market Report 2013-2017 ”by research2guidance. Smartphone applications have begun to enable the mHealth industry to successfully monetize their services.

The Impending Revolution

Ralf-Gordon Jahns, Head of Research at research2guidance, points out “Our findings indicate that the long-expected mobile revolution in healthcare is set to happen. Both healthcare providers and consumers are embracing smartphones as a means to improving healthcare.”

The Publishers

Top mHealth publishers manage to generate more than 3 million free and 300.000 paid downloads in the USA on the iOS platform. The reach on other platforms and in other countries differ at lot but show also the increase of business potential for mHealth apps.

Not only are consumers taking advantage of smartphones to manage and improve their own health, but also healthcare professionals. A significant number (15%) of mHealth applications are primarily designed for healthcare professionals. These include CME (Continued Medical Education), remote monitoring and healthcare management applications.

The Climate

Currently there are 97,000 mHealth applications in major app stores, 42% of them adhering to the paid business model. With more and more traditional healthcare providers joining the mobile applications market, the business models will broaden to include healthcare services, sensor, advertising and drug sales revenues.

“With the growing sophistication level of mHealth applications, only 9% of the total market revenue in the next 5 years will come from application download revenue”explains Patrick Houck Analyst at research2guidance. “84% of total mHealth application market revenue will come from related services and products such as sensors”.

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Assessment

The “Global Mobile Health Market Report 2013-2017 ”by research2guidance is a business guide for traditional healthcare companies, mHealth specialists as well as for mobile operators wishing to successfully engage into the new mHealth market.

About research2guidance:

research2guidance is a Berlin-based mobile app economy specialist. The company’s service offerings include app strategy consulting, market studies and research.

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McCown writes: “Doctors think that because they’re doctors that they know everything. Several times I’ve had one doctor or another tell me specifically how they wanted me to do something in a database. They didn’t know the first thing about it, but they heard a few terms here and there so they decided to run the show. And here they are in meetings insisting that I follow their HA architecture that was just ridiculous.”

He continues: “I got a reputation in my company for being difficult to work with because I always called them on it and told them to let me do my job. Then they would complain and my boss would be at my desk the next day. It’s just incredible ego to think that you’re an expert in all fields because you’re an expert in your own specialty.”

More: “IT folks aren’t going to work for peanuts… not when they can go somewhere else and get $20 to $30K more. Oh yeah, and you’re also going to have to start treating them like they’re professionals. IT guys don’t want to hear how much the doctors know about IT. They want you to let them do their jobs. So seriously, stop treating them like they’re nothing compared to the doctors.”

Finally: “Here’s a scoop for you. Healthcare is going to need to get their act together or else. The government is mandating that everyone have their health records in a meaningful use format by 2015 so the time of getting by on the idiots you’ve got is over. You’re going to have to get some real talent and do what it takes to keep them. If that means paying them a good salary, and listening to them, then all I can say is ‘you poor baby.’”

US Top 10 iPhone mHealth Apps Generate 5.5 Mio. Lifetime Downloads On Average

Today’s most successful free Health & Fitness apps accumulated 5.5 Mio. downloads since their first appearance in the Apple App Store on average. There are significant performance gaps that highlight the importance of choosing the “right” platform, app category and device choice for mHealth publishers.

There are 3 main areas of performance gaps that impact the performance of a top mHealth app most.

1. mHealth app category performance gap: The Health & Fitness app category attracts more iPhone, iPad and Android users than the Medical app category. As a consequence the top selling apps in the Health & Fitness apps can expect to reach up to 11 times higher download numbers than in the Medical section for free apps and up to 7 times higher downloads for paid apps.

2. mHealth mobile operating system performance gap: Although Android became the no. 1 platform for free mHealth apps in terms of monthly downloads, there is still a big performance gap for paid mHealth apps. Successful paid mHealth iPhone apps still generate 5-6 times higher monthly download numbers on average than their counterparts on the Android platform.

3. mHealth device performance gap: Due to still higher penetration rates of smartphones compared to tablets, successful mHealth apps that are optimized for smartphones get 5 times (paid) and 2 times (free) more downloads than apps that are optimized for tablets.

This analysis is part of our new series of benchmarking reports starting with the US mobile healthcare app market. The report analyses the app market performance of the most successful mHealth apps on the iOS and Android platform. Find out more in our report “US Top 10 mHealth Apps Performance Benchmarking”.

Apart from the report “US Top 10 mHealth Apps Performance Benchmarking” we just published the 3rd edition of our comprehensive “Global Mobile Health Market Report 2013-2017” by research2guidance is a business guide for traditional healthcare companies, mHealth specialists as well as for mobile operators wishing to successfully engage into the new mHealth market.

Top 10 free Android Health & Fitness apps generate almost 240.000 downloads on average in their lifetime.

Successful free Android mHealth apps in both categories – Health & Fitness and Medical – reach significant higher downloads than Apple apps. Health& Fitness apps that were listed in the top 10 between December 2012 and February 2013 managed to generate 238.000 downloads on average since they have been on the market.

Successful apps that are being listed in the Health & Fitness category generate on average 4-5 (free) and 2-3 (paid) more downloads than apps that are listed in the Medical section of the Apple App and Google Play stores.

The following graph illustrates the average accumulated downloads of free apps that have been listed in the top 10 in the Health & Fitness app category during the analysis period.

The Health& Fitness app market is still a niche market if you compare it with the average download number of top 10 apps in the game or entertainment sections of the app stores. This is especially true for apps that are being listed in the Medical sections (see Brazil Top 10 mHealth App Performance Benchmarking Report for more details).

On the other hand if all downloads from the top 10 apps from both Android and iOS are summed up, the reach becomes more impressive. In total, health-conscious users downloaded 3,44m apps that track calories, measure heart rates and count steps. This does not even include top 10 Health & Fitness apps that have been in the top 10 e.g. a year ago or paid apps, or apps long tail Medical apps. This shows that even in so called emerging countries, mobile apps became a channel to health-conscious users and patients that can’t be neglected.

Similar to the US and the German mobile health market, apps that are listed in the Health& Fitness category attract significantly more iPhone, iPad and Android users than apps in the Medical category. One reason for the performance gap of paid apps is the 4 times higher pricing level of Medical apps.
The Brazilian mHealth app market seems to offer higher chances for local apps to reach the top 10 than other Western app markets. However global mHealth players like Runtastic also rank amongst the top 10 in Brazil with some of their apps.

This analysis is part of our new series of benchmarking reports starting with USA and Germany. In our benchmarking report series, which compares the app market performance amongst the most successful mHealth apps on the iOS and Android platforms, we will be publishing reports about Japan and UK soon.

About research2guidance:
research2guidance is a Berlin-based mobile app economy specialist. The company’s service offerings include app strategy consulting, market studies and research.

According to Madelyn Kearns – A recent report from Markets-and-Markets research firm predicts that the mHealth apps and solutions market will ramp up from a worth $6.6 billion in 2013 to $20.7 billion by 2018, at a compound annual growth rate of 25.5 percent.

An Allied Market Research study observed that the global mHealth market was valued at $6.7 billion in 2012 and is estimated to reach $8.3 billion by the end of 2013.

With growing per capita healthcare expenditure both in developed and advanced developing countries, the mobile healthcare market is further projected to reach $58.8 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 32.3% from 2013 to 2020.

As of Q3 2011, mobile health user statistics lists the average age of users being 35 while 54% are male and 46% are female. 87% own a smartphone while 33% own an iphone. 61% downloaded a mhealth app and about 85% use social media for health related reasons. 76% take a prescription, yet 30% are caregivers.